I had either Braxton hicks "practice contractions" or very early labor beginning at midnight, a dull ache like a menstral cycle. Around 3 I decided to time them, they weren't exactly painful just nagging and happened every 5-10 minutes. By 5 I got up to take a bath and it offered no relief, but I was able to put my cooled canned pickles away, feed the pets, function normally. Then I woke the family and we headed near the hospital (an hour away) around 7.
My son went to grandmas and my pains hasn't increased so we went to Starbucks and I got a yogurt which I devoured, and a few sips of Chai. I'd need the caffeine, having not slept one bit.
And then, we walked and walked and walked. Around Target where my pains got enough to slow me down during one. Then up to the bookstore and back. Then around downtown and into a bakery where I ate a dry gluten free cookie, my pains a bit worse but still not stopping me. I might slow my pace or straighten my lips that was it. Then around Walmart twice, where things got consistent, 5 minutes, and then around the grocery store, and finally the hospital.
By about 11 I was in triage with a nurse from my town and somehow we went to school together yet knew no same people....until...her mom! Her mom is my son's speech teacher! Anyways I was 5cm 80% effaced -2 station and let into labor and delivery. My pains were worse now but the kind you can meditate through.
At about 12:30 the doctor broke my water and shortly after, I was 8cm and +1 station.
At about 1, 1:30 the pains got bad. I was in transition and I began to moan in pain, with contractions 3 minutes apart and lessening. I tried yoga breathing, envisioning the pain going through me and out my feet. My husband, once a competitive weight lifter, gave my feet resistance and he said my adrenaline for e was up to 500 pounds or more!
Things got quicker and worse and around 2 I was in the worst pain ever...so far. I called for a nurse and I was not quite ready to push, baby hadn't turned and I still had some...whatever, in his way, so I was put on my side. Very shortly after, I phoned the nurse, I'm ready to push I can tell but not feel it. They come, blow it off., and leave. Suddenly I get this pain I cannot even get words for, like everything was being ripped apart, smashed, stabbed, shoved back in at once. Like I was imploding and exploding the universe. I began to holler and growl and nurses of every kind ran in and I somehow was able to say I am pushing! The doctor was not there so they said no you cannot push wait for him. I grunted out that something was gonna get pushed, then I let out a banshee cry like I was possessed, the pain got even worse and....I pooped. I told them I was going to push and something would come out. See it could have been baby but they said no, and what happens instead?
They patted my face as I seriously began to go to some other planet, look at us, they said, don't push, center, focus in something, breathe. They repeat this mantra as I sadly poop even more, mumbling sorry when I could, screaming
a hellish guttural roar when I couldn't.
I somehow see the clock and 2: 25 to 2:30 etch into my mind ( my glasses off, my best vision is 20/400 so the time was etched yet fuzzy). I see the doctor arrive in a moment where I am here on Earth, and I begin flailing my legs for the stirrups yet to be there, I became some deranged giant squid of lore. Finally they say push and also hold here, foot here, hand here, push, pull, breathe, no screaming, look at us, center, focus...I am lost in the sea of chaos, body parts moving everywhere, hands grabbing me, a blur of faces so pinning around me like a pay psycho circus. I can't differentiate myself from the doctor, nurses, my husband. I'm no longer human. I hear "you can do this" from one nurse and I push some more. Time stops and reverses and I hear a deafening ungodly roar come from me but not in my own volition. I feel shoulders bigger than mine "down there" and hundreds of glassy razor sharp jagged points. I'm giving birth to a 6 foot tall, six foot wide thing made only of corners! I push some more and that hellish roar returns and I am stuck on repeat, mind over body, body over mind, me somewhere else. Then I hear "one more push" right as I want to give up, right as the worst pain ever hits me. I hear "open your eyes and push. I see a yellow and blue head and torso twisting out and I can feel everything and pop! Swoosh! A baby is placed on my belly, a teeny boy so small I think he can fit in my hand. It feels unreal.
At 2:35 he made his way into the world, my arms, my heart.
The silly thing, since numbers fascinate me (even if I loathe and fear math) is with my oldest son, I was in triage at, you guesses it, between 10:30 and 11:00 and transition around noon and I have birth to him a 2:44, 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant. This time around, 38 weeks, 6 days pregnant. A whopping 9 minutes difference in active labor, down to the day. My husband says I am like a turkey timer! The doctors and nurses were all impressed by my speediness and actually, minus those last moments of poop and otherworldly screams, how well I did.
I did it. 100% natural. The worst and best hours of my life. And now I am a proud mama to two gorgeous guys!
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